News from the Zoo, from the Zoo

Hello Friends and Family!

We have an exciting Thanksgiving post coming up that should have readers flocking. It has some violence, but nothing too fowl. In the meantime, we wanted to keep you stuffed with details about our lives, so here's our latest adventure!

Wednesday morning of last week, Justine woke up and looked out the window.  Not only did it look sunny, but it also looked warm, which was a welcome change.  So she hopped up, headed across the hall to Nate's "office" and declared that they should visit Potter Park Zoo after work.  Potter Park Zoo is the local Lansing zoo located right next to her grandparent's neighborhood.  It's not as large as a traditional zoo, but it has a surprisingly diverse set of exhibits and exotic animals.  And so, our plans were born. We met up with Dave and the three of us arrived around 2:30p with an hour and a half to explore. Luckily, November through April, there is no charge to go to Potter Park, and the guy who collected parking money was gone, so we got to visit for free!

We headed in and got started right away.  We should have known that it was going to be a lucky day at the zoo because we were all chatting about how Justine never, in all her years going there, seen the wolves.  As we rounded the corner, there was the wolf, peering at us with mild interest.  That set the mood for the day; perhaps due to some combination of almost having the whole zoo to ourselves and lucky timing we ended up seeing every group of animals out in the open and in top form.

We spent some time with the monkeys; they wouldn't stop cleaning their hair.  If you've ever watched How I Met Your Mother and seen the character Ted preen his hair, then you know the maneuver.  Each time one emerged from their indoor enclosure, they'd blink in the sun, sit down and manage their mop.  Next, we visited the Ostrich, which seemed happy to see us.  They all headed over and snapped up leaves in their beaks, which made a sharp hollow sound.  We are still convinced that they are actually something dreamt up by Jim Henson.  Who else would create a giant fuzzy bird with huge wings, raptor feet and a tiny head perched on a snake-like neck?

We continued to wander around the rest of the zoo, spotting some other oddities. There was a Pallas's cat that was extremely excited about a King vulture in the exhibit next door. The cat was running in circles, climbing trees and staring intently, all while constantly making funny cat noises.  The king vulture, on the other hand, looked like a character straight from a Disney cartoon and was making comical movements with an expression of complete surprise. The two animals made for perfect neighbors!

Next up were the Meerkats.  There were about ten meerkats all chittering away while sunning themselves on a large rock.  In the center of the enclosure was a tall post, and on top was perched a lone meerkat, diligently keeping watching for danger. As we approached he snapped his head in our direction, looked us over and then decided we weren't a threat and continued his watch. Meanwhile, the other meerkats were taking turns standing up for a few seconds and then sitting down. But once we started moving again, they all stood up in unison and watched us go. It's an odd thing to have a whole colony's attention.

We had noticed the occasional peacock throughout the park, but, as we rounded a corner, we stumbled upon their base of operations.  There were peacocks above, the were peacocks below. There were peacocks on buildings, there were peacocks on fences.  The more you looked, the more you noticed hidden in plain sight. Younger males sat in the wings waiting for their iridescent plumage to grow while the older males strained to show off their brilliant displays. Meanwhile, the bright white females pecked idly at the ground, unaware or uninterested in whomever was considering themselves the cock of the walk.

So many animals were outside, but the greatest surprises awaited us in the big cat house! Earlier in our walk we had seen all the kitties outside, the lion perched on his rock and the tiger clawing at its tree-made-scratching-post.  But later, after circling the park, we went inside the cat house at just the right time.  It was just as they were being fed or right before they were being fed because the large cats were fired up!

The Snow Leopard was beautiful.  She just lost her mate this past year, and isn't a spring chicken herself, so she was pretty sedate.  She was sitting very close to the glass, so we got to get right up close to her to admire her beautiful markings.

The Tiger was cleaning himself as we watched.  We just sat for about 10 minutes and admired the size of his paws; outside we were quite far away from him, and worried he might be a bit skinny, but inside his paws looked to be the size of dinner plates and his massive build was impressive.

Last, and definitely not least, the Lion.  He was pretty antsy and he certainly wasn't shy letting everyone know!  As you can hear in the video, he would start out with really loud roars, and then would slowly wind down to grunts, eventually fading out all together.  What the video doesn't capture is how deep and primal his roar sounds.  In the movie Jurassic Park they used samples of lion calls for the dinosaur roars; after being face to face with a lion, you can see why.  Once, while Justine was sitting right up against the glass, we're pretty sure he tried to smell her hair.  It was both very cool and very scary to be so close to something with so much power.

As an added bonus, we got to share this experience with Dave, which still feels like a special treat.  Back with more post Thanksgiving!

-Justine & Nate